


The Crying Season

by blakefancier



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-25
Updated: 2011-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-18 16:18:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blakefancier/pseuds/blakefancier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Avon mourns his dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Crying Season

Avon stands on a beach; a lone figure dressed in white. The water laps gently at his toes and the wind tousles his hair into his eyes. He stands motionless, as he has done every day for the past five months, watching the sparkling play of sunlight on water. The exposure from sun and wind has left his face chapped and red, but he no longer feels the pain.

Once, long ago, he had read a story of woman who had walked into the ocean. Walked and kept on walking until the swell had overtaken her. With no means of expression, the silence that surrounded her had been consuming. But the waves released her and poured forth her words in the tumbling sound of water upon shore.

He sometimes thinks of walking into the ocean, of setting loose the roar of his emotions.

It is Blake who stops him. Blake who is dead, Blake who he killed.

Blake who stands before him in memory and says, solemnly, "I don't know that I'll win. I don't know that I'll be better than the Federation. But maybe it's not the end result that matters. People are suffering, dying, and I have to help them. I have to try. As long as I try, I'll never really fail."

This is why he cannot walk into the ocean He has to try; he owes Blake that much.

He closes his eyes and conjures an image of Blake.

*****  
Blake was a defeated man. But even in defeat, he was glorious. Bleeding from his shoulder, tired, hair tangled and wild, he strode through the corridor like an old time warrior fresh from battle. They met in the middle, each going the opposite direction. But before Avon could pass, Blake grabbed him hard by the arm.

'Why aren't you in an escape pod,' Avon asked.

Blake only shook his head. Before Avon could pull away, Blake kissed him roughly on the mouth. Then in a voice that was scraped raw by pain, said, 'I love you.'

I love you, as if that explained the recklessness of the kiss. Avon could only stare at him, mouth open in surprise.

Blake pressed something small and cool into his palm. 'Keep it safe for me.' Then he walked off. Those were his last words to Avon before they saw each other again on Gauda Prime.

When he opened his hand, there in his palm lay a medallion.  
*****

He puts a hand in his trouser pocket, feeling the warm metal press into his skin. No one will ever love him the way Blake loved him. And even though he hadn't loved Blake then, somehow in the years since, he learned to.

He opens his eyes once more and waits for twilight.

**********

Another day, the same pose.

He is not alone.

Vila stands next to him, close enough that their shoulders brush. "You can't wish him back."

No, of course not. Wishes are as foolish as dreams and he no longer dreams. But at night he can smell Blake on the sheets and when he peers into the darkness, eyes the color of warm honey peer back.

"Avon," Vila whispers and touches his arm. "What do you see when you look out there?"

Freedom...and failure.

*****

Avon does not dream, yet memories play upon his mind.

'I love you. Keep it safe for me.'

And still he is too surprised to answer back.

*****

He sits at the little table in his room and pours two glasses of brandy. It is a nightly ritual; he cannot sleep without it. He will drink one glass and leave the other untouched.

In the morning, the brandy will have evaporated into stickiness. He will pretend that Blake drank it.

He slips the medallion from his pocket and holds it in his palm. The design is what was called a Lover's knot, or so Orac says.

He curls his fingers around it and closes his eyes.

*****

Almost half a year has past and he still wakes with tears on his face. This does not bother him, as it once did. The wiping away of wetness is merely another ritual.

However this morning is different. He knows it is time, and that knowledge sits like a dead weight in his stomach.

Today will be the last day he goes out to watch the shimmer of sunlight on the water.

*****

Darkness falls and he stands on the edge of the water. He holds Blake's gift in his hand, the metal edge biting into his palm.

Then, in the moonlight, he slips it around his neck.

"Yes. I will keep it safe for you."


End file.
